* * * * *

From Snow-Bound.

=_374._= DESCRIPTION OF A SNOW STORM.

    The sun that brief December day
    Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
    And, darkly circled, gave at noon
    A sadder light than waning moon,
  Slow tracing down the thickening sky
  Its mute and ominous prophecy,
  A portent seeming less than threat,
  It sank from sight before it set. 
  A chill no coat, however stout,
  Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
  A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
    That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
    Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
  The coming of the snow-storm told. 
  The wind blew east:  we heard the roar
  Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
  And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
  Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

* * * * *

  Unwarmed by any sunset light
  The gray day darkened into night,
  A night made hoary with the swarm
  And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
  A zigzag wavering to and fro
  Crossed and recrossed the winged snow: 
  And ere the early bed-time came
  The white drift piled the window-frame,
  And, through the glass, the clothes-line posts
  Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

  So all night long the storm rolled on: 
  The morning broke without a sun;
  In tiny spherule traced with lines
  Of Nature’s geometric signs,
  In starry flake and pellicle,
  All day the hoary meteor fell;
  And, when the second morning shone,
  We looked upon a world unknown,
  On nothing we could call our own. 
  Around the glistening wonder bent
  The blue walls of the firmament,
  No cloud above, no earth below,—­
  A universe of sky and snow!

* * * * *

From “The Pennsylvania Pilgrim.”

=_375._= THE QUAKER’S CREED.

* * * * *

  Gathered from many sects, the Quaker brought
  His old beliefs, adjusting to the thought
  That moved his soul, the creed his fathers taught.

  One faith alone, so broad that all mankind
  Within themselves its secret witness find,
  The soul’s communion with the Eternal Mind,

  The Spirit’s law, the Inward Rule and Guide,
  Scholar and peasant, lord and serf, allied,
  The polished Penn, and Cromwell’s Ironside.

  As still in Hemskerck’s Quaker meeting, face
  By face, in Flemish detail, we may trace
  How loose-mouthed boor, and fine ancestral grace,

  Sat in close contrast,—­the clipt-headed churl,
  Broad market-dame, and simple serving-girl,
  By skirt of silk and periwig in curl!

  For soul touched soul; the spiritual treasure-trove
  Made all men equal, none could rise above,
  Nor sink below, that level of God’s love.